


in a hopeless place

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Genre: Gen, M/M, post-red seas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:09:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falselight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in a hopeless place

**Author's Note:**

> No archive warnings do, indeed, apply: but this is set just after Red Seas Under Red Skies.

Locke can't walk. At some point during this lazy week, during which Jean has employed himself gainfully by torturing every physiker and scholar in the Therin-speaking world, Locke has gone, gradually and unremarked-upon, from being able to get along, one foot after another, with Jean's shoulder to lean on and a lot of creative swearing, to not bearing weight. 

Locke doesn't really mind. Jean has been picking him up and carrying him out of trouble since they were children, can do it with one arm while threatening people for information with the other, while also discussing Throne Therin romantic poetry with punctuating hand gestures and playing the dulcimer with the toes of his left foot. Jean's just that good. He tells Jean this with hand gestures of his own and much enthusiasm; Jean looks at him levelly and says, "Do you need something for the pain?"

Locke shakes his head and says, "Jean, there's something I'd like to see – before I…"

Jean places a hand over his mouth. Locke bites down, gently, and there's a small scrimmage after that, as always happens when Locke tries to use that word ("If you think I won't punch a sick man in the nose, you are sadly mistaken") but eventually Locke lies back and says, muffled: "Falselight."

Later Locke thinks maybe Jean has forgotten, or never even heard, but another week after that they're out to sea again, the yacht drifting, just the two of them plus whatever it is, creeping, that's sharing the space of Locke's body, and the sun has set but for some reason Locke can still see distant light. Through his fogged mind, it takes a while for understanding to permeate, and when it does it's with all that same blurred immediacy of light through fog. "Camorr."

"This is as close as we can get, these days," Jean says, ruefully. "But… Falselight."

"Falselight." Locke is strangely content, the sea breezes stirring his hair.

Jean waves a hand. "Why did you want…"

Locke pauses, then grins. "Falselight. _False light_. I am a confidence trickster."

Jean smiles at that, and Locke wants to say something else – something about how here, now, when he can taste his own death like metal in his mouth, that to remember these things are important, that to think simple thoughts of starlight and nightfall, even now, are to lay down the life he's lived, but he thinks saying that will probably mean Jean threatening to punch him again. 

Instead, he says, "It's between sunset and true night. Between this" – he holds up a ring in one hand – "to this" – and palms it into the other. 

Jean laughs, startled, and claims back his signet ring. "You little _thief_."

Locke chuckles, still strangely content. After a while Jean comes to sit beside him, strokes his hair out of his eyes with a kind of desperate tenderness, and Locke is thinking about Jean's stint as an initiate of Aza Guilla, to whom all prayers are the same. _Not now_ , _not yet_ , _not tonight_ , and some time soon they're going to have to have that conversation, the one about _acceptance_ , and _afterwards_. But right now Locke is still breathing, still burning, still rocking on the black water, still looking out towards the lights.


End file.
